


The Return

by Potato_Being



Series: Awakening [15]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: M/M, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3767884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potato_Being/pseuds/Potato_Being
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teldryn finally finds Meren in Arcwind Point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Return

They faced each other in the pouring rain. _Like one of those damn romance novels._ Teldryn thought bitterly. He looked up at the Altmer who stood ten feet away, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. He stunk.

Teldryn didn't smell like a flowerbed himself, but at least he didn't smell like old blood, skooma, sweat and alcohol. With some urine and road mixed in.

His eyes were darting everywhere but on the Dunmer. He was looking at the sky, the rocky cliff, the arcing pillars of the Nordic burial ground they were in, the single clump of grass that was yellow and looked like it had died about the same time the Draugr had…

"Why the hell did you run off?" Teldryn shouted. Meren flinched, looking even more skittish than normal. _Good. Serves him right._ Teldryn thought harshly. "You could have at least left some sort of message, instead of me waking up alone, surrounded by priests, trying to figure out how I'd gotten there! You're just lucky they were able to cure me of the vampirism!" The high elf was shaking, and Teldryn was sure he was about to run. "Well? Answer me!"

"I was scared." Came the quiet reply. At that point, Teldryn snapped.

"You're always scared! You're scared of everything! There's nothing you're not frightened of!" he screamed, "You abandoned me! You left me to die!"

"You were in the hands of healers, there was nothing I could do!" Meren interjected.

"You left me with strangers who worship a god I have nothing to do with! How could you just leave, knowing I could die? How are you able to live with yourself? I thought you loved me." The last sentence came out a broken whisper, as Teldryn's face twisted as he fought back tears.

"I turned the man I loved. How could I meet your eyes after that?" Meren said, his voice breaking.

"You abandoned me. I shouldn't have tracked you down."

"I came back to the temple. A--a month later. They said--they said that you had left. I tried to find you. But I ended up with…"

"With a pouch full of skooma, I know." Teldryn spat. "You always do. Skooma and mead."

"I'm sorry. I tried to fight the urges, but if it's not the skooma, it's the blood."

"It's a little late for apologies, Meren."

"I know. I don't deserve you anyway. How could a-- how could a vampiric Altmer deserve someone like you?" His heart was breaking, Teldryn could see it. "I'm… You can go. It doesn't matter any more."

"If you had stayed, I wouldn't have been angry. Even about the vampire thing. You did what you had to do to extend my life. I woke up in a temple, when I had gone to sleep in a bandit camp in your arms, with an arrow in my stomach."

Meren looked at the ground, silent.

"Do you realise that when I first picked up your trail, it was because two hunters found you in a wall, high off skooma, screaming about me? Do you realise that I've followed you all the way across Skyrim, trying to catch up with you? That every time I think I'm almost there, that I've found you, I'm one day too late?"

"Why? Why follow me? Why track me down just to get rid of me?"

"Oh, Meren…" Teldryn said, stepping towards him. "I wouldn't track you down only to cast you out. I wanted to find you so badly that it hurt."

"Why? Why would you want to?" Meren asked.

"You hurt me. You hurt me so badly. But I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you."

"What are you saying?"

"If you're willing, I'll take you back. Because you're a vampire, and you're too close to going on a blood hunt, with or without your remedies. Because I still love you." As Teldryn opened his mouth to continue, Meren dropped to his knees, hugging Teldryn tightly. The larger man began to shake with sobs, as Teldryn wrapped his hands around the Altmer's head.

"Please, never leave me." Meren said shakily.

"As long as you don't abandon me." Teldryn told him.


End file.
